


The Little Lion and the Youngest Tully Girl

by DK65



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 10:56:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7168256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DK65/pseuds/DK65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime and Lysa's marriage is a loveless union; he spends most of his time in King's Landing with Cersei, while she runs his home and estate in Casterly Rock. As she recovers from her unrequited feelings for Petyr, she finds someone close to home to care for. After many years of marriage, when she presents her husband and his father with her twin children, neither she nor Tyrion disclose who the father is...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Little Lion and the Youngest Tully Girl

The fact that her lord husband seldom looked at her, even when he was home, would have made any other woman unhappy, but not Lysa. He did not look at her; even when he slept in their chamber, he did not sleep with her. She did not notice it, not then, because her head and her heart were still full of Petyr, who was now in Riverrun, with only Edmure for company, now that both Catelyn and Lysa were married and gone to live with their husbands.

It did not take her too long to work out why her husband paid her so little heed, not when his sister and father paid them a brief visit from the capital. Jaime stuck to Cersei like a burr to woven cloth--he did not leave her side while she and Lord Tywin were in residence. And Lord Tywin treated her with cold courtesy--colder, she imagined, than the north winds that blew around her sister's home. At least he was more courteous to her than he was to his youngest son, Tyrion, whom he treated with utter disdain. Although Lysa was horrified by Tyrion's ugliness, he was the only one in Casterly Rock who treated her with some kindness. This was enough, in her loneliness, for him to win her heart.

She had been drawn to Petyr because he was intelligent and smart; she was drawn to Tyrion for the same reasons, as well as his kindness. Although Jaime was Castellan of the Rock in his father's absence, it was Tyrion and Lysa who read the messages, drafted replies supervised by Maester Creylen and often wrote out fair copies of the same after they had read these out to Jaime for his approval. Lysa was shocked and saddened to discover that her husband could barely read or write. Cersei, the maester assured her, was more apt at learning what was needed. And Lord Tyrion, of course, was the cleverest of the three, although the smallest and youngest.  
It was not long after she was married that Lysa was saddened to learn of Tyrion's decision to go to Oldtown, to the Citadel, to forge a chain and become a maester. She was enraged when she learned that Jaime supported this plan. Tyrion explained to her while Jaime was sparring in the yard with Sandor Clegane that he wanted to leave Casterly Rock for a life of learning. She nearly broke down then and wept; she had lost all those whom she loved because of her marriage, and now she was to lose him too.

She insisted that the younger Clegane boy (who was squire to Uncles Tygett and Gerion) would accompany Tyrion to Oldtown, as his sworn shield. She also insisted that Jaime used all the Lannisters' power and influence in Oldtown so that Tyrion returned to serve in the Westerlands. "He is so brilliant," she told her husband as she massaged his sore muscles after a hard day in the saddle, "Why would you let a lesser house take advantage of his brilliance? If he is close at hand, he can advise you. If not, he will be advising others." Jaime agreed to this, not because he thought her arguments had any merit (he seldom thought of her as having merit, compared with Cersei!) but because he wanted to keep his little brother safe.

So Tyrion and Sandor Clegane went to Oldtown; Tyrion returned within a year after forging his chain. He was sent to Fair Isle as maester to the household. However, he often came to Casterly Rock; his lord liked to show how close he was to his liege lord's family. Since Jaime spent more and more time in the capital with Cersei, Lysa and Aunt Genna were the only ones to welcome Tyrion warmly when he came.

Lysa could not but be aware of how time was passing by; she had been a maid of fourteen when she married. She was now a woman of eighteen, who should have been the mother of a son or two if her husband had done his duty by her before he went to his sister's bed. Of course, Lord Tywin denied her visits to the capital or Riverrun; she had not fulfilled her role as his son's wife, to bring forth Lannister heirs into the world. She sat thinking of this sadly and weeping, alone in her room, when Tyrion walked in.

"Why the tears, sweet sister?" he enquired kindly--he seldom addressed her as good-sister in private. She did not need to tell him much; he knew, as well as she did now, how matters stood between Jaime and Cersei. Lord Tywin wanted the biggest prize on the marriage mart for his daughter, who was more interested in bedding her twin.

"Of course, Jaime cares more for her than he does for me; she is so much more beautiful," she cried, in a sudden jealous fit, recalling how Petyr, whom she had loved, had eyes only for Catelyn, who only thought of doing her duty by her family.

"Beauty," Tyrion observed, "such as Cersei's, is highly over-valued. She is neither kind nor sweet, not even clever. She thinks if she does as father bids that she will have power but she does not realize that she won't. She can just about control Jaime as her sword arm; will she be able to control a husband? I wonder." He looked at her calmly out of his mismatched eyes.

"You, on the other hand, married a man who treats you ill. Oh, he does not beat you, nor does he drink or go out wenching. But he does not love you as you deserve. You have been surrounded by handsome and powerful knights, any of whom you could have taken to your bed and given your lord and husband the horns he so richly deserves, but you have not. You have run our household well, given my brother sage advice despite your youth, been like an older sister to me, even though my appearance must have shocked you when you first saw me and been an excellent niece to my uncles. You've even managed to make a home for little Joy. "  
Lysa was not certain what this was leading up to, but it was leading up to something. The lord of Fair Isle had several cases that needed seeing to in Casterly Rock and Lannisport, so Tyrion stayed a longer while than usual. He insisted she accompany him wherever he went out for business or pleasure. He told his aunt and uncles that she was pining for Jaime and he feared she would make herself ill if he did not take it upon himself to make her laugh. Neither Tygett nor Gerion objected, and Genna was positively encouraging when she told Lysa to spend more time with Tyrion, who used to make her laugh so when she first came to the Rock.

Lysa thought back to that confused time when she was so in love with Petyr and just married to Jaime. Edmure had written to her about him; he had gone to Braavos, to work for his relatives in the Iron Bank. He no longer sent letters to Riverrun; he seemed to have forgotten them all. Perhaps he had married, who knows? At that time, Tyrion had been a boy of ten or so; Jaime had been a year older than Lysa. And now, Tyrion was almost a man grown, with a scruffy beard to show for it!

So Lysa indulged herself by spending some time with her favourite relative by marriage. Tyrion took her around the bays and beaches that surrounded the Rock, which he had shown her when she had first arrived as a bride. She had taught him to swim in the sea, just as Catelyn had taught her and Edmure to swim in the river. They had often picnicked on the beach, to avoid eating in the great hall, when Lord Tywin was not in residence. They had behaved like a pair of naughty children in those days.

And now, when they discovered a discreet, misshapen little hut on their favourite beach; when they spent the day there, taking a meal that the cook had hastily put together for them that morning; when they threw off their heavy clothes and entered the cold, silky water of the Sunset Sea; when, instead of hastily dressing and eating and going back to the Rock, they spent time in the hut, as naked as their name-days, exploring each other's bodies, giving each other pleasure, screaming and roaring to their heart's content? She felt no guilt or shame; she was with someone she loved and she was happy and fulfilled as a woman. She hoped she would fall pregnant; she did not think Jaime would deny he was the father. He hadn't slept with her after their first disastrous and painful attempt on their wedding night, but she was certain he would not tell his father this. She wondered if Tyrion knew or guessed, but she had already decided that she did not care. She was happy and she would keep that happiness in her heart for always.

And so, some ten months later, when her good-father praised her many excellent qualities as a wife and mother and congratulated Jaime on the birth of the twins, she glanced at Tyrion and smiled. The clever and powerful Lord Tywin, Hand to two kings, hadn't guessed that Jaime and Cersei were lovers. And he did not know (praise the gods!) that the twins were not Jaime's, but Tyrion's. Jaime cast a sharp glance at her once or twice, as if he wanted to ask her whose children they were, but she ignored him. He could go to Valyria for all she cared, to look for Brightroar. She had her children; it was all she had ever wanted. And she knew she had Tyrion's love; it was all she needed.  
So it was rather a shock for Lysa, when the twins celebrated their first name day, to find Jaime a permanent resident of the Rock. She soon learned why he had returned to the Westerlands for good; Princess Elia had died, attempting to give birth to yet another Targaryen child. Since King Aerys' madness had only increased after the incident at Duskendale, it did not take his Lord Hand much time to persuade the Crown Prince to send his father to Dragonstone as a virtual prisoner, keep his mother and his younger siblings at court and take another wife.

There were rumours, of course, that Prince Rhaegar was attracted to his cousin Robert's wife, Lady Lyanna Stark, but the she-wolf and the stag seemed to have a surprisingly happy marriage. Lord Robert, who was known to have fathered a child on a housemaid in the Eyrie, had become a very faithful husband after saying his vows in Sept and godswood, Catelyn said. She also stated that Lyanna had insisted on taking in and bringing up his bastards alongside her trueborn children--she said this had the effect of preventing Robert from straying. Of course, Lyanna had only given him the one child, Jon, who was the very image of his Stark uncles.

So Prince Rhaegar ("We must learn to call him King Rhaegar now, Lysa," Catelyn said) had no choice other than marriage to Cersei, which was not such a bad choice for him. For was she not the most beautiful woman, not only in the Westerlands but at court and in all the land? And so they were wedded and bedded, and King Rhaegar's children by Princess Elia were given into his mother's care. Of course, Lord Tywin stayed on in the capital as Hand of the King--Jaime, who had spent these last years of Aerys' rule, travelling from one tourney and tournament to the next, winning joust after joust and crowning his sister Queen of Love and Beauty after each one, returned to the Rock after the wedding, much the worse for drink and a hasty journey home.

Of course, he and Lysa had little to say to each other; even in the early days of their marriage, they had spoken more of matters of administration and justice than of their feelings for each other. She had grown used to their lack of a relationship; she spoke more to Tyrion or Aunt Genna or her uncles by marriage than she did to her husband. He did not try to draw closer to her; he spent most of his time in the saddle, visiting all his father's bannermen in their strongholds, feasting and jousting and hunting and drinking, while Tyrion (who had eventually returned to the Rock from Fair Isle, now that Maester Creylen had grown so old and feeble) and Lysa ran the Rock and the Westerlands as his deputies. Both she and Tyrion were able to ensure that no one, least of all Lord Tywin in King's Landing, suspected that anything was wrong at the Rock.


End file.
